/ ABOUT THE ARTISTS /

2013 Towry Best of East England Award Winner, Iva Troj seamlessly incorporates her vast experience of traditional painting techniques with postmodern elements to create engaging Renaissance-style works that challenge the notion of societal conformity. Born in Bulgaria, based in Scandinavia and the UK, Troj creates work originating fundamentally in the crossing of two realities: the one she grew up in and the one she has embraced.

Photographer and artist John-Paul Bichard has spent much of the past 3 decades at the margins of the art world: exploring the culture of video games, performance, sexual identity and burlesque/drag culture. His works question the assumed power of the gaze in the relationship of viewer to subject, as well as exploring ways in which fragmented narratives are interpreted in contemporary culture. Bichard has exhibited internationally with works in the collections of Tate London, V&A and MOMA New York.

The duo have combined their relentless analysis of contemporary culture with a more contemplative exploration of gender, role and aesthetics in a series of ambitious works that question both the viewer as well as their individual praxis.